Carl Lindström A.G. was a global record company founded in 1893 and based in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

History

Founded by Carl Lindström (1869–1932), a Swedish inventor living in

, it originally produced

phonograph A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

s or gramophones with the brand names "Parlograph" and "Parlophon" and eventually began producing records as well. It became the holding company for

Odeon Records Odeon Records is a record label founded in 1903 by Max Straus and Heinrich Zuntz of the International Talking Machine Company in Berlin, Germany. The label's name and logo come from the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe in Paris. History Straus an ...

Parlophone Records Parlophone Records Limited (also known as Parlophone Records and Parlophone) is a German–British record label founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The British branch of the label was founded on 8 August 19 ...

(originally "Parlophon"),

Beka Records Beka Records was a record label based in Germany, active from about 1903 to 1925. Before World War I, Beka also made gramophone records for the United Kingdom market under the Beka-Grand Records label. The company became a subsidiary of the Car ...

Okeh Records Okeh Records () is an American record label founded by the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, a phonograph supplier established in 1916, which branched out into phonograph records in 1918. The name was spelled "OkeH" from the initials of Ott ...

Fonotipia Records Fonotipia Records, or Dischi Fonotipia, was an Italian gramophone record label established in 1904 with a charter to record the art of leading opera singers and some other celebrity musicians, chiefly violinists. Fonotipia continued to operate int ...

, Lyrophon, Homophon, and other labels. Lindström sold the company to Max Straus (Odeon co-founder), but Lindström remained with the company as an engineer and inventor.

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

caused the company to cut back its holdings closing the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

branch of Odeon when war broke out. Okeh in the

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

survived the war intact because its president, Otto Heinemann, was an American citizen. During the war, the Transoceanic Trading Company was set up in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

to look after its overseas assets. Lindström returned to the UK in 1923 with the establishment of a British Parlophone branch. Parlophone's "₤" trademark is not the

lira sign Lira is the name of several currency units. It is the current Turkish lira, currency of Turkey and also the local name of the Lebanese pound, currencies of Lebanon and of Syrian pound, Syria. It is also the name of several former currencies, ...

but a stylised

blackletter Blackletter (sometimes black letter), also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule, or Textura, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 until the 17th century. It continued to be commonly used for the Danish, Norweg ...

"L" (

\mathfrak

) for Lindström. Among Parlophone's later claims to fame; it was the label for UK releases by

The Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...

and Peter Sellers. The introduction of electrical recording with

microphone A microphone, colloquially called a mic or mike (), is a transducer that converts sound into an electrical signal. Microphones are used in many applications such as telephones, hearing aids, public address systems for concert halls and public ...

s and mixing consoles put Lindström at a disadvantage and they sold the company in 1926 to the Columbia Graphophone Company which had rights to electrical recording technology. In 1931, Columbia Graphophone merged with the Gramophone Company to form

EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 201 ...

with the labels retaining their identities. EMI's German unit in 1931 was originally called "Lindström-Electrola" after the merger. Okeh became part of the American operations of

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

. Parlophone became a major powerhouse in the EMI portfolio of labels thanks to the company's signing in 1962 of

. As a condition of

Universal Music Group Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Dutch– American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and its ...

acquiring EMI in 2012, European regulators forced EMI to spin off certain assets into a separate company called Parlophone Music Group. Parlophone was acquired by

Warner Music Group Warner Music Group Corp. ( d.b.a. Warner Music Group, commonly abbreviated as WMG) is an American multinational entertainment and record label conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the " big three" recording companies and t ...

in 2013.

External links

References

External links

Parlograph
Edison cylinder machine, ca 1910, by Carl Lindström AG

site, has label images
Dacapo label
from above site
Parlophone label
clearly showing the Parlophone "₤" trademark. (from above site) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Carl Lindstrom Company German record labels German companies established in 1893 1926 disestablishments in Germany Record labels established in 1893 Record labels disestablished in 1926 EMI Jazz record labels Mass media companies of Germany Mass media companies established in 1893

History

External links

References

See also

External links